Hustle And Flow (HD DVD)

Every purchase you make through these Amazon links supports DVD Verdict's reviewing efforts. Thank you!

All Rise...

Judge Ryan Keefer sprained his ankle coming home the other night from a concert, and as you all know, limpin' ain't easy.

Editor's Note

Our review of Hustle And Flow,
published January 18th, 2006, is also available.

The Charge

"I mean, we got everything we need right here. And all this stuff in
this…this little-bitty space, man, it just looks so much bigger now. I'm
here trying to squeeze a dollar out of a dime, and I ain't even got a cent,
man."

Opening Statement

Hustle and Flow is a breakout film for many different reasons. It
introduced the world to the directing efforts of Craig Brewer. This film,
combined with Crash, made 2006 the year
of Terence Howard, and brought him to more notoriety. And, for better or worse,
it's given the world an unlikely Oscar winner with the rap group Three Six
Mafia, which earns them lifetime crunk, or whatever the term is. And in high
definition, is Hustle and Flow the shizzle?

Facts of the Case

Written and directed by Craig Brewer (Black Snake Moan), DJay (Howard) is
a low-rent pimp/drug dealer living in Memphis, who has dreams of making it big.
I know, we all do. He sees an old friend in Key (Anthony Anderson The Departed), who records
church choir performances. In between his meeting with Key and a secondhand
keyboard he receives from one of his clients, he has a bit of a revelation. He
wants to put together a rap demo tape to give to a local rapper named Skinny
Black (Ludacris, Crash), who is coming
back to Memphis for the Fourth of July. Along with a white hooker in Nola (Taryn
Manning, Cold Mountain) and a
pregnant, "on leave" hooker, Yevette (Elise Neal, Mission to Mars), DJay tries to crystallize
a moment on tape so Skinny will help get DJay fame and success.

The Evidence

It really is enjoyable to watch a film where the cast's collective
performances are for champagne tastes despite being on beer budgets. Everyone
goes for broke and every performance is heartfelt and earnest, from even the
most unlikely sources. I'm personally used to Anderson's comic work, but he does
a great job in this supporting role. Manning and Neal put in some great effort
into their roles, especially Neal, who basically can't leave the house but she
acts and sings amazingly well. DJ Qualls, the skinny kid in Road Trip, even provides some capable
dramatic effect as Shelby. But the film rests on Howard's shoulders, and he does
an amazing job. In watching the supplements for the film, it was amazing that
not only did Howard resist the role at first, but Brewer painstakingly tried to
make the film with Howard as the lead, and was rejected countless times by big
studios, who wanted to recast the role. And now that the film has been in
circulation for a little while, it's hard to see anyone else in the role. Even
when circumstances arise that hinder DJay's likability, one has to respect his
single-minded determination to make sure his dream is realized. Never would I
thought I'd love a pimp who smacks pregnant women and throws baby mamas out of
his house, but Terrance Howard pulls it off with aplomb.

Along with the great performances, the way that Brewer is able to shape the
story is another commendable task. He loves music, and I'd say that along with
Tarantino, he manages to capture music on film, either set to a scene or right
in the middle of it, like very few. When DJay, Shelby and Key manage to develop
their first collaboration, a small hook for the big song, you are sucked into
the adrenaline of creativity, made even more visceral when they end the hook,
and everyone is winding down from being "in the moment." Shelby says
something at the end of the scene that is funny, but at the end of something so
powerful, you could pretty much say anything and have it sound silly. There's
nothing quite like putting a piece together, musically or otherwise, and
transitioning out of that frame of mind will probably be academic.

From a technical perspective, the VC-1 encoded 1080p 1.85:1 anamorphic
transfer doesn't really stand out in high definition compared to other titles.
That's largely due to the low production budget, but the film grain really does
take away from the overall sharpness of the image, and it's a distraction on
some close up sequences. The Dolby Digital-Plus soundtrack does make the crunk
sound good and all, but with a film as musically active as this, I was looking
to have my fillings rattle when the songs were being put down, and it didn't
happen either. I was both surprised and disappointed by the sound of Hustle
and Flow.

Extras wise, everything that's on the standard edition disc comes on the HD
DVD version. Brewer's commentary is the big piece, and Brewer is an excellent
commentary subject. He discusses how the story came about and how the production
transpired. In this (and in Black
Snake Moan) it's clear that Francis Ford Coppola is a direct inspiration for
him. The fact that Brewer can do a pretty good impression of Hayes doesn't hurt
either, and he goes on similar tangents about music, among those mentioned are
Purple Rain and Otis Redding, and that's
not even discussing the Memphis musicians that contributed to the score. His
recollection of the production is actually well detailed and worth the time if
you enjoyed the movie. "Behind the Hustle" is your typical making of
look at the film's production from read through to premiere. The cast and crew
discuss the film and what drew them to it, and the struggle to get the film
realized is discussed also. The film's producer, John Singleton (Higher
Learning), discusses the role he played in pulling the film together. I like
the making of featurettes in Brewer's films because as opposed to other features
where it's a whole superficial mutual admiration society, you can tell these
people are genuine fans of each other's work. There's a lot of audition and
rehearsal footage of the cast mixed into the piece also. "By Any Means
Necessary" is a nice peek into where the film's concept stood before it
became a reality. Brewer also discusses his father's death in the context of
where his career was before Hustle saw the
light of day. It really does help provide inspiration for aspiring filmmakers to
stick to their guns and see their visions out, and is worth watching.
"Creatin' Crunk" is a look at how the music came together, and starts
with a funny country version of the noteworthy song from the film. But it
becomes a mini-history lesson of Memphis music with composer Scott Bomar.
Following that is some audition footage with Ludacris, Parker and Howard, then
some extensions onto two scenes from the film. But the extensions are basically
unshot and from the table reads by the cast. An acoustic version of the song
(which I mentioned earlier) is here, along with six TV spots and two
trailers.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

Two things about the film for you to ponder. When you boil Hustle and
Flow down to its basic element, it's about a protagonist who is looking to
get the brass ring, and everyone around him discovers talents that they might
not have known about before. So in terms of the basic story, it is a little bit
conventional, it's approached in a different way. As to point two, I know and
understand why Brewer formulated the ending the way that he did. But in seeing
the film when it first came out on video, and again for this review, I still
find a little bit too convenient for my tastes. There is a smaller scene that is
actually better and I would have loved for the film to end that way without the
scene preceding it, but this is an otherwise nice effort.

Closing Statement

Sure, there's lot of profanity, and lots of pimps, and lots of ho's, but
Hustle and Flow takes a historically unseeming or tacky character and
transforms him into a charismatic figure that the audience can root for. The
performances are all top shelf and Brewer has leveraged the success of this into
subsequent projects centered in Memphis that deserve attention. If you haven't
watched it by now, go rent it already! Although I wouldn't buy it for the high
definition upgrade, if that's what you want to know.

The Verdict

Could DJay listen to this tape that the Court made awhile back? The court
also goes by Heavy Gavel.